Already weighed down by insecurity, violence and grinding poverty, Palestinians have recently shown in dramatic fashion that they can no longer turn a blind eye to yet another hazard of everyday life: rampant corruption.
"We don't blame the Palestinian Authority in its entirety, just the corrupt who are getting rich at our expense. Ninety percent of officials are on the make and they have to be punished and thrown out of office," a stall holder in Gaza's central market said.
Anyone wanting a job as a civil servant in one of the public departments has to be ready to line the palm of the local boss.
"You need to come up with 800 shekels (180 dollars) for a position in a ministry that is paid 1,200 shekels (265 dollars). It's daylight robbery," he said.
A wave of kidnappings in the Gaza Strip on Friday led to a long-awaited overhaul of the security services, whose leaders are among those accused of corrupt dealing.
Armed militants loyal to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have vowed to pursue their war against corruption as strenuously as their campaign of violence against the Israelis.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat's Fatah movement, led protests over the weekend after Arafat appointed his cousin Musa as the new overall head of general security, denouncing him as the epitome of corruption.
Another market trader, Imad Zayed, railed against "these brigands who fill their pockets while we can hardly scrape a living."
"Yasser Arafat can't do anything, he's a prisoner in his headquarters. He is president in name only," he said.
Zayed earns a meagre 500 shekels selling children's clothes at the market. Just four months ago he was making about 4,000 shekels working as a day labourer in Israel. That came to an end after restrictions on movement were imposed in the wake of the assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in March.
Oum Ahmad, whose seven sons were among 35,000 Palestinians working in Israel before the start of the latest intifada four years ago, is today without an income, and her sons are idling at home.
"We are utterly destitute, and there is no sign that things are going to get better," said Ahmad who has 17 children and who lives in the Chatti refugee camp.
"This has got to change and this misery we are living in has to end. Neither Musa Arafat nor Ghazi Jabali are the right people to punish the corrupt," she added.
Arafat decided not to go ahead with Musa's appointment as the new security supremo after the clashes in Gaza. Musa's role is now limited to the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian police chief General Ghazi Jabali, who was kidnapped for four hours on Friday by dissident militants accusing him of corruption, was later replaced.
Ahmad does not blame Arafat. As far as she is concerned "he is old now and has been overtaken by events." A young man from the Cahtti camp who has spent seven years in Israeli jails said that no one wanted to lead a witchhunt against Palestinians who had come back to the Palestinian territories from exile in Tunisia and who now hold key posts.
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